by Kim Law
She and Bree both fell silent as they watched the action across the street. Jenna and Haley darted inside the house, the dog following close behind, and Dani met Gabe on the porch. She handed over a small purple suitcase as Gabe said something, then nodded and smiled, one hand going to her belly. Erica couldn’t miss the new-mom glow of happiness. She and Dani had chatted after school a couple of times when Dani stopped by to pick up Haley, and Erica had learned that the pregnancy was her first.
“Why hasn’t his wife come out?” Bree spoke again.
“I don’t know.”
Jenna and Haley reappeared, a smaller, more spaniel-looking dog joining them, and ran around to the backyard. The dogs loped along behind the girls, tongues lolling.
“He’s very good-looking.”
“He can’t help it,” Erica replied without thinking. “All of the Wilde boys are.” She recalled that key detail from spending time at Gabe’s house over a decade ago. Her gaze swung back to Dani. “As well as their sister.”
“And you dumped him to get back together with JC?”
She shook her head. Not that Bree could see it. “He dumped me.” And she hadn’t officially started dating JC again until he’d graduated from Stanford and come back home.
A few more words were exchanged on the porch before Gabe called for the girls. Dani leaned down and hugged Jenna, and then Dani, Haley, and the monster dog climbed back into the SUV and pulled away. And as if aware that Erica had been standing there all along, Gabe turned his head to look at her.
“Busted,” her sister murmured from the phone.
He lifted a hand in greeting, and Erica’s first thought was to drop below the window and hide. She was spying on the man, after all. And she’d clearly been caught. But being the mature adult that she was, she turned her back to him instead. “About that tour of the place,” she blurted out. She moved into the middle of the room and flashed the phone around for her sister to see.
“Does he have on a wedding ring?”
Erica stopped. “What?”
“Gabe. Is he wearing a wedding ring?”
“I have no idea. Why would I know that?”
“Because you’re a freaking woman, E. And because that man is hot!”
“He’s not that hot.” At least, she hadn’t noticed it when she’d seen him in her classroom. How had she missed that?
She glanced over her shoulder, groaning when she saw him still looking her way.
“He’s every bit that hot,” Bree argued. “Now tell me when I can come for a visit.”
Erica flipped the screen back around. “Why, exactly, do you want to come for a visit?”
“To see where you live, of course.” Bree gave her a duh look, and Erica let out a soft “Oh.”
“And to check out your hot neighbor.”
“You are not coming here to check out my hot neighbor,” Erica hissed. “And anyway, you’re out of the country.” And he wasn’t that hot. He couldn’t be.
Because he might just be married.
She slipped around the partial wall, blocking her from view of the front picture window.
“You do know they invented these things called airplanes, right?” Bree quipped. “They take you places by flying through the air, and they get you there really fast. They can even go from one country to another.”
As Bree rattled on, Erica pressed herself to the kitchen wall.
“Come on, E,” Bree groaned. “Quit ignoring me. I need to see your place up close, not through a phone. I’ll help you put your stamp on it.”
Erica wasn’t sure she had a stamp.
Nor was she sure why her heart was pounding a mile a minute and she was skulking through her own apartment. She edged toward the window over the sink.
“Labor Day?” Bree said. “Unless you’re going home?”
“Not on your life.” Leaning to the left, she reached the window and tried to covertly see across the street. “The last thing I’m in the mood for is more pretending that everything is hunky-dory with my traitorous ex and his oh-so-perfect girlfriend. That ship has sailed.”
Bree briefly paused, and when she spoke again, her words had gentled. “Then I’ll come to you. We’ll make it a fun day, just the two of us, okay? I have an appointment with a gallery here Friday morning, but I can hop a flight soon after. With the time difference, I should be in Montana by Saturday afternoon at the latest.”
Gabe and Jenna no longer stood outside their home. Heaving out a sigh of relief, Erica straightened from where she’d ended in a half crouch. The coast was clear.
Then she realized what Bree had just suggested, and she replayed the last few minutes through her head. Was her sister offering to come to Birch Bay because she felt sorry for her? Was that what this was about?
“You don’t have to do that,” she told Bree. Labor Day had always been a big deal for both the Yarbroughs and the Birds in Silver Creek. “I’ll be fine here by myself.”
“I’m not doing anything. I want to come. I want to see you.”
Or maybe she wanted to grill her on what had happened to cause Erica to give up her security and everything she’d ever known in the span of a few days.
Erica swallowed around the sudden lump. She’d been living with her parents since her divorce but had left town before they’d returned from their annual national park vacation. They were teachers, as well, and always picked a park or two to visit each summer before the school year started. “There’s no need to spend your money because of me,” she told her sister. “A last-minute trip like that would be pricey.”
“I have plenty of money to spend, big sister. And I’ll spend it however I want.”
Erica started to argue further, because she very much doubted that Bree had so much money that throwing away a chunk of it on an unexpected international flight was not a big deal. But the truth was, she’d love to see her sister. Very much. It had been months since they’d been in the same city together. And even though the age gap between the two of them was the greatest, she’d always felt closer to Bree than to either their other sister or their brother.
“Fine.” She nodded at the phone. “Yes. Please. Come see me. I’d love it. But I’ll pay you back for the flight.”
Bree rolled her eyes.
“No arguing,” Erica demanded. She strode through the house, stopping for a minute to look up the length of the pole. “But keep in mind that I only have one bed, so it’ll be you on the couch. With the pole.”
A soft knock sounded, and without thinking, Erica turned for the door.
“I get to sleep with the pole?” Bree sighed in an overly wanton way. Her voice rose from the palm of Erica’s hand as dark-fringed eyes met Erica’s across the threshold of the now-open door. “I can’t wait,” Bree breathed out.
Gabe’s gaze slipped over Erica’s shoulder to the pole.
“I’ll even teach you how to dance with it,” her sister continued, laughing wickedly. “No matter how big it is. My much older, far wiser sister might just learn a thing or two from little old me.”
Gabe’s low chuckle silenced Bree, but only for a second.
“He’s there?” she squeaked. “E! Why didn’t you tell me?”
Erica lowered her hand, trying desperately to remove her sister from the moment.
“Gabriel Wilde?” Bree squawked from beside Erica’s thigh. “Is that you? Let me see you. We were just talking about you.”
Gabe’s brows hitched. He snagged Erica’s wrist before she could pull farther away, and as he lifted her phone, the same smirk that had first captured her attention over thirteen years before appeared on his wide lips. And this time, in addition to the smirk, Erica also noticed one other pertinent detail. His ring finger was most decidedly bare.
He positioned the phone in front of him, then he tilted his head and studied Bree as if the name behind the girl with the pink hair would ever be in question.
Finally, he spoke. “If it isn’t little Breedom Yarbrough.”
B
ree groaned at the nickname.
“You were talking about me, you say?”
“She’s lying.” Erica freed her hand and tapped the “End” button, cutting off her sister’s protest midyelp, and silence fell as Erica stared blankly up at Gabe. She didn’t speak, because, really, what could she say? He’d just overheard them talking about pole dancing. About big things. And all after he’d caught her spying on him.
She gulped.
And he wasn’t married.
Or maybe he simply didn’t wear a wedding ring. Not everyone did. Prince William didn’t wear one, and everyone knew their marriage was solid. It meant nothing these days.
She didn’t want it to mean anything to her, either.
But dang if she didn’t suddenly hear her nineteen-year-old voice taunting her to make a move on the man now standing two feet in front of her. Same as she’d done the first night she’d laid eyes on him.
Chapter Four
Gabe couldn’t soak her in enough. He’d just seen Erica a few days before, yet he’d been so caught off guard that morning at the school that he’d done little more than stare in shock. But today he had the pleasure of time. And the previous knowledge that he’d find her here—rumors of where “the new teacher” had rented had been circling. So he took the time, and he looked his fill. And he’d swear there wasn’t a thing about her that had changed since the night they’d first met.
Brown hair captured in a single thick braid running down the middle of her back, easy girl-next-door looks with an overwide mouth—still glistening with the same shade of pink he remembered—and the most fascinating hazel eyes he’d ever come across. In a second’s understanding, he knew he could once again make a hobby of trying to pick out the individual hues of greens and browns trapped inside the rich perimeters of olive.
He finally made himself speak. “Hello, neighbor.”
“Hello,” she murmured. Soft exhalations of air matched the rise and fall of her chest.
“So you and Bree were talking about me?”
She shook her head, pulling a look of disgust. “Just that you’d apparently moved in across the street. Other than that, my baby sister was simply being my baby sister.”
He chuckled at that. He had no doubt Bree had been antagonizing Erica. She hadn’t even made it to her teen years when he and Erica had dated, yet within one meeting it had become clear that if anyone were to change the face of the Silver Creek Yarbrough clan, it would be baby-of-the-family Bree. With her current look, he’d say that she was well on her way.
He relaxed with the memories and leaned a shoulder against Erica’s door. “I came over to say hi to you, and I got to see the always-entertaining Breedom, as well. What a treat.”
“Tell me about it.” Erica shot him a smirk. “Bree’s certainly one of a kind.”
He had the urge to tell her that she was a close second, but she’d turned her focus from him. She stood on tiptoe and peeked over his shoulder, so he followed her gaze. Jenna had taken Mike to the fenced backyard, and though there was no sight of her, Mike’s occasional bark made it across the street.
“She’s playing with her dog,” Gabe explained.
Erica shifted her gaze back to his then, and he had the urge to fidget like a schoolboy. After several long seconds of the silent treatment, she shocked him with her next words. “Your daughter is floundering, and I doubt it’s happening only while in school. It’s as if she doesn’t know where she fits in.”
Gabe’s heart ached at the truth of the statement. “She’s going through a rough patch.”
“Problems at home?”
He blinked. “You get right to the point.”
“I’m her teacher”—she shrugged unapologetically—“and there’s something going on with one of my students that worries me. I’d been hoping to run into you so we could try to get to the bottom of it, but probably I should have already sought you out.”
“And you can see this in her after only four days in class?”
Another shrug. “I’m a good teacher. Why wait when I see a storm brewing?” Her gaze flicked to his house. “Her mother around? There’s no need to set a later appointment if you both have a few minutes now.”
Irritation flared. Erica didn’t know anything about his daughter.
“We just moved in today,” he explained, his words short. “So as you can probably guess, we have quite a few things we need to see to at the moment. Maybe a meeting between my wife and me could wait?”
His words seemed to pain her, but she nodded without argument. “She’s your child.” Then she cleared the censure from her face and offered him a fake smile—while at the same time taking a step back and reaching for the door. “Thanks for stopping by, Gabe. I’ll let you get back to your unpacking.”
“Wait.” His hand shot out, stopping her before she could close the door. “I’m sorry. That was rude. I was rude.” He shook his head, irritation gone, now replaced with annoyance at himself. “I shouldn’t have been a jerk. You just . . .” She’d hit a button. He sighed. “I appreciate your concern for Jenna. I swear. And I didn’t come over for any reason other than to be neighborly.” He forced himself to once again relax. “I wanted to say hi. To officially welcome you to town. It really is good to see you. But to tell you the truth, you’re the last person I would have ever expected to find here.”
“You mean here in Birch Bay”—she cast her gaze around the room—“or here in a fire hall?”
He laughed at that. “Both.” He’d run into her a few years back, and it had seemed as if she’d had her life completely on track. Yet, now she was Ms. Bird. “What in the world brought you to my neck of the woods? I figured you’d be on kid number two by now, at least. If not three.” He glanced at the car sitting in the driveway. “Maybe driving a minivan instead of a compact.”
“I like my compact.” The reply came quickly. Then she eyed the small four-door parked in front of the building as if willing herself to believe her own words.
Gabe watched her without speaking, trying to read her thoughts. He’d once been able to decipher most anything that had passed through her mind. Anyone had been able to. But that didn’t seem to be so easily done these days. She’d closed herself off.
The realization saddened him.
“You okay?” He didn’t know why he voiced the question. Her issues weren’t his business.
Yet his words seemed to change her.
Her shoulders eased, and her chest expanded with a deep breath. Then finally, she pulled her gaze back to his. The shell around her suddenly had a crack in it, and he could see the Erica he’d once dated. “Life happens.” She gave him a tight smile. “And sometimes that means you quit your job and move to another city.”
Her hurt sliced him in two. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “For whatever went wrong.”
“Plans change, that’s all. I’ve adapted.”
The quick dip of her eyelids signaled that she’d said enough and her walls were coming back, but since she’d given a small piece of herself, he decided to share something of him, as well. “I’m divorced.” When her eyes shot back to his, he added, “Or, I soon will be. Michelle stayed in California instead of moving back here with us, so there won’t be any meeting with the two of us.”
“Back here with you? Are you saying that you left Birch Bay?”
That’s the one thing he’d told her he would never do. “Two years ago.”
“Why?”
He swallowed his reply. Telling of a pending divorce was one thing, but going into the details . . . He’d keep those to himself. Instead, he offered another insight. “Once I settled into LA, I began to reevaluate my life. I remembered this science teacher I once had.”
“Mr. Childers?”
Warm surprise filled him. “You remember that?”
Pink spots appeared high on her cheeks. “You mentioned him a couple of times. He made an impact on you.”
“He did.” Gabe let his thoughts roll back to when he’d first
met Mr. Childers. It had been right after his mother forced him to quit football. Without that steadying influence in his life, Gabe wasn’t sure where he’d be today. “I’d like to give people the same kind of support he gave me,” he confessed. “To make an impact on a student or two. So I went back to school and got my teaching certification.”
Erica nodded her head, the movement so small he almost didn’t see it. “Teaching suits you, though I’ll admit, as well, that that was the last thing I expected to find when I moved here, too. But it fits. You’re that type of guy.”
Jenna’s laughter filtered through the tree branches on the other side of the road, and both of them turned to look. There was still no sign of her, but they could hear her talking to Mike now. The dog barked in the gaps of her words, as if actively taking part in the conversation, and Gabe momentarily closed his eyes as he took in the sounds. She laughed so infrequently these days.
“I’m sorry about your divorce,” Erica said softly.
He lifted his lids. “Thank you. It’s been tough for both of us.”
“You got custody?”
“I did.”
Questions crossed Erica’s face when he said no more, but she didn’t voice them, and Gabe worked hard not to show his utter disgust for his ex’s actions. Custody had been by default, though he’d have gone to his death to ensure he’d gotten it.
Not wanting to stand there in the middle of a Saturday afternoon and talk about the woman he preferred neither he nor his daughter ever laid eyes on again, he steered them back to safer territory. “Along with teaching, I’m also the football coach.”
The way Erica’s jaw dropped open made him laugh out loud.
“I know.” He drew the word out. “Who would give someone like me that chance, right?”
“Not at all. I just . . .” Her words faded before a look of genuine pleasure crossed her face. “I’m happy for you, Gabe. Truly. I never would have imagined those changes, but I’m thrilled for you. So how’s the team doing?”
It was his turn for his cheeks to heat. “Not good,” he admitted. “Our first game was last night. Don’t look up the score.”
